IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v50y2023i8p2071-2086.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The geography of public transport competitiveness in thirteen medium sized cities

Author

Listed:
  • Erik B Lunke
  • Nils Fearnley
  • Jørgen Aarhaug

Abstract

Securing sufficient accessibility with public transport is essential for reducing private car commuting. While most studies of transport accessibility are based on travel times, other quality factors such as the perceived disadvantage of congestion and service frequency are also of importance for transport mode choice. In this study, we use generalized journey times to calculate accessibility and public transport competitiveness, allowing us to account for other characteristics of commute trips than just travel time. We use detailed trip data to calculate generalized journey times to typical employment areas in thirteen urban regions in Norway. The results show that public transport services compete better with the car in the largest cities. Specifically, public transport is competitive for access to central employment areas but less so for less central employment areas. In the smaller cities, the private car is the most competitive mode on most commute trips. With detailed travel data, the method developed in this study can be replicated in other contexts to provide a more holistic measure of accessibility than traditional methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik B Lunke & Nils Fearnley & Jørgen Aarhaug, 2023. "The geography of public transport competitiveness in thirteen medium sized cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(8), pages 2071-2086, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:50:y:2023:i:8:p:2071-2086
    DOI: 10.1177/23998083221100265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23998083221100265
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/23998083221100265?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ioannis Baraklianos & Louafi Bouzouina & Patrick Bonnel & Hind Aissaoui, 2020. "Does the accessibility measure influence the results of residential location choice modelling?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1147-1176, June.
    2. Engebretsen, Øystein & Christiansen, Petter & Strand, Arvid, 2017. "Bergen light rail – Effects on travel behaviour," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 111-121.
    3. Tarje I. Wanvik & Håvard Haarstad, 2021. "Populism, Instability, and Rupture in Sustainability Transformations," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 111(7), pages 2096-2111, November.
    4. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    5. Cui, Boer & Boisjoly, Geneviève & El-Geneidy, Ahmed & Levinson, David, 2019. "Accessibility and the journey to work through the lens of equity," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 269-277.
    6. Banister, David, 2011. "Cities, mobility and climate change," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1538-1546.
    7. Jang, Seongman & Lee, Seungil, 2020. "Study of the regional accessibility calculation by income class based on utility-based accessibility," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Paulley, Neil & Balcombe, Richard & Mackett, Roger & Titheridge, Helena & Preston, John & Wardman, Mark & Shires, Jeremy & White, Peter, 2006. "The demand for public transport: The effects of fares, quality of service, income and car ownership," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 295-306, July.
    9. Pereira, Rafael H.M., 2019. "Future accessibility impacts of transport policy scenarios: Equity and sensitivity to travel time thresholds for Bus Rapid Transit expansion in Rio de Janeiro," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 321-332.
    10. Matthias Sweet & Mengke Chen, 2011. "Does regional travel time unreliability influence mode choice?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 625-642, July.
    11. Redman, Lauren & Friman, Margareta & Gärling, Tommy & Hartig, Terry, 2013. "Quality attributes of public transport that attract car users: A research review," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 119-127.
    12. Katrin Lättman & Margareta Friman & Lars E. Olsson, 2016. "Perceived Accessibility of Public Transport as a Potential Indicator of Social Inclusion," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(3), pages 36-45.
    13. Dong, Xiaojing & Ben-Akiva, Moshe E. & Bowman, John L. & Walker, Joan L., 2006. "Moving from trip-based to activity-based measures of accessibility," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 163-180, February.
    14. Salonen, Maria & Toivonen, Tuuli, 2013. "Modelling travel time in urban networks: comparable measures for private car and public transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 143-153.
    15. Fearnley, Nils & Currie, Graham & Flügel, Stefan & Gregersen, Fredrik A. & Killi, Marit & Toner, Jeremy & Wardman, Mark, 2018. "Competition and substitution between public transport modes," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 51-58.
    16. van Lierop, Dea & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2016. "Enjoying loyalty: The relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in public transit," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 50-59.
    17. Arnold van Exel, Nicolaas Jacob & Rietveld, Piet, 2010. "Perceptions of public transport travel time and their effect on choice-sets among car drivers," The Journal of Transport and Land Use, Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, vol. 2(3), pages 75-86.
    18. Øystein Engebretsen & Petter Næss & Arvid Strand, 2018. "Residential location, workplace location and car driving in four Norwegian cities," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(10), pages 2036-2057, October.
    19. Smith, Duncan A. & Shen, Yao & Barros, Joana & Zhong, Chen & Batty, Mike & Giannotti, Mariana, 2020. "A compact city for the wealthy? Employment accessibility inequalities between occupational classes in the London metropolitan region 2011," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    20. Golub, Aaron & Martens, Karel, 2014. "Using principles of justice to assess the modal equity of regional transportation plans," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 10-20.
    21. John F. Kain, 1968. "Housing Segregation, Negro Employment, and Metropolitan Decentralization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(2), pages 175-197.
    22. Arbex, Renato & Cunha, Claudio B., 2020. "Estimating the influence of crowding and travel time variability on accessibility to jobs in a large public transport network using smart card big data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ha, Jaehyun & Lee, Sugie & Ko, Joonho, 2020. "Unraveling the impact of travel time, cost, and transit burdens on commute mode choice for different income and age groups," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 147-166.
    2. Bjørnson Lunke, Erik, 2023. "Accessibility in a multi-ethnic city: Residential trade-offs among first-time parents," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Dorsa Alipour & Hussein Dia, 2023. "A Systematic Review of the Role of Land Use, Transport, and Energy-Environment Integration in Shaping Sustainable Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-29, April.
    4. Zhang, Guozheng & Wang, Dianhai & Cai, Zhengyi & Zeng, Jiaqi, 2024. "Competitiveness of public transit considering travel time reliability: A case study for commuter trips in Hangzhou, China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Pinto, Davi Garcia Lopes & Loureiro, Carlos Felipe Grangeiro & Sousa, Francelino Franco Leite de Matos & Motte-Baumvol, Benjamin, 2023. "The effects of informality on socio-spatial inequalities in accessibility to job opportunities: Evidence from Fortaleza, Brazil," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    6. Hudyeron Rocha & Manuel Filgueiras & José Pedro Tavares & Sara Ferreira, 2023. "Public Transport Usage and Perceived Service Quality in a Large Metropolitan Area: The Case of Porto," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, April.
    7. Lunke, Erik B. & Fearnley, N. & Aarhaug, J., 2021. "Public transport competitiveness vs. the car: Impact of relative journey time and service attributes," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    8. Mulley, Corinne & Ho, Chinh & Ho, Loan & Hensher, David & Rose, John, 2018. "Will bus travellers walk further for a more frequent service? An international study using a stated preference approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 88-97.
    9. Chakrabarti, Sandip, 2022. "Passively wait for gridlock, or proactively invest in service? Strategies to promote car-to-transit switches among aspirational urbanites in rapidly developing contexts," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 251-261.
    10. Jesper Bláfoss Ingvardson & Otto Anker Nielsen, 2022. "The influence of vicinity to stations, station characteristics and perceived safety on public transport mode choice: a case study from Copenhagen," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 459-480, June.
    11. Mondschein, Andrew Samuel, 2013. "The Personal City: The Experiential, Cognitive Nature of Travel and Activity and Implications for Accessibility," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7014d9cg, University of California Transportation Center.
    12. Sharma, Gajanand & Patil, Gopal R., 2024. "Urban spatial structure and equity for urban services through the lens of accessibility," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 72-90.
    13. Sun, Fan & Jin, Minjie & Zhang, Tao & Huang, Wencheng, 2022. "Satisfaction differences in bus traveling among low-income individuals before and after COVID-19," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 311-332.
    14. Mondschein, Andrew Samuel, 2012. "The Personal City: The Experimental, Cognitive Nature of Travel and Activity and Implications for Accessibility," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt67d5w48s, University of California Transportation Center.
    15. Qihao Liu & Yuzheng Liu & Chia-Lin Chen & Enrica Papa & Yantao Ling & Mengqiu Cao, 2023. "Is It Possible to Compete With Car Use? How Buses Can Facilitate Sustainable Transport," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 69-83.
    16. Toşa, Cristian & Sato, Hitomi & Morikawa, Takayuki & Miwa, Tomio, 2018. "Commuting behavior in emerging urban areas: Findings of a revealed-preferences and stated-intentions survey in Cluj-Napoca, Romania," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 78-93.
    17. Guzman, Luis A. & Cantillo-Garcia, Victor A. & Oviedo, Daniel & Arellana, Julian, 2023. "How much is accessibility worth? Utility-based accessibility to evaluate transport policies," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    18. Stefan Christian Alexander Hudak & Tadej Brezina & Johannes Kehrer & Josef Michael Schopf, 2023. "Tracing rail transformation: the case of passenger services in Slovenia from 1975 to 2015," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 253-274, March.
    19. Cats, Oded, 2014. "Regularity-driven bus operation: Principles, implementation and business models," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 223-230.
    20. Rubensson, Isak & Susilo, Yusak & Cats, Oded, 2020. "Fair accessibility – Operationalizing the distributional effects of policy interventions," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:50:y:2023:i:8:p:2071-2086. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.